Sailing an ice boat requires the perfect confluence of several, very rare weather events. You have to have smooth clean ice — so it has to get cold before it snows. Then you need wind. Not too much, and not too little.

When it works, Jon Blessing, one of the guys who owns the boat, said it’s like hitting warp speed. The boat has been clocked at 54 mph. But last winter, the weather just never lined up. I wrote the story anyway.

Then last week, Blessing called me. The ice was perfect. The wind was perfect. He said we had about three hours of good sailing. I dropped everything.